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Hi, over the next month I am going to stop training to failure once a week and train mon, wed and fri using 2 w/up sets and 2 work sets for 5 reps. I′m still going to keep the total number of excersizes and sets low. Session 1 will be squats, weighted dips and l-fyes for the rotator cuff and session 2 will be deadlift, chins and crunches. I am going to alternate each session so one week i′ll do session 1 twice and the next week will be session 2 twice. I′ m still on my fat loss plan, but feel as if i′m not doing enough training. As I now realise that cardio dose not burn much fat unless your working out for hours each week i′ve now decided to weight train more often. I don′t think I could train to failure 3 times in one week so I am going to keep the reps at 5 and add weight to the bar at each session. Hopefully i′ll get to my goal within the next month or so and as soon as I do I will increase the calories and go back to training to failure 3 times every 2 weeks or even once a week. My bodyweight is now at 162 lbs, so i′ve lost 15 lbs in total. I′m going to go to 154 lbs and then try and build back up to about 180 lbs.

huh, i didnt like a single thing you mentioned there. Ill get back later when i have time

hi Gav223,

this would be of course your decision and im somewhat interested as how this will work out for you but i would advice agianst it, im not sure about cutting down with weight training, i think just a diet will do just fine, your right about cardio it burns so less calories unless you do it something like 2 times a day wich of course will eat into your recovery. so my opinion is to train HD style while on a diet of 500 – 700 calories below your MAINTANENCE level ( i spelled that right.. right?:P)

anyways keep us posted

later

Hi ttwarrior4 and crovax.

Over the last few months when I first started training hd style i′ve read quite a few articles on bodybuilding, fat loss and fitness, as you know there are so many different views and it is really confusing. At the start I said to myself that I am not going to read anything more on the subject, so I would not get tempted by another theory. I was doing really well training to failure as far as strength gains were concerned, however I felt as if I should be doing more, but could not do anymore training to failure. At the moment my main goal is to strip my body of fat and i′m not really concerned to much about strength gains as they will be my focus once i′ve completed the first part. The majority of people seem to advice to train 3,4 and even 5 times per week. I have always stuck to no more than 2 sessions per week, but that was because I have never been interested in fat loss. I′m pretty sure that apart from health benefits cardio does little for fat loss, unless you are doing a lot of it and then that will cause problems with recovering from weight training. Due to this the only excersize I was doing was 2 sets to failure once a week and I was concerned that I was not maximising my energy to improve my fat loss. I′m not in any way saying that hd training is not the way to go and I may even go back to it while i′m still on my fat loss stage, if I feel that the other way is not working. I′m not 100% sure how the body actually works and I think what works for one person may not work for another, so I am going to have to experiment with myself. Will training 3 times per week burn more fat, but also burn some muscle, than if I only trained once a week? If I could burn an extra 4 lbs of fat per month by training 3 times per week, but also lose 2 lbs of muscle then I agree that training this way is stupid, but I am not going to know until I try it. Once I have lost the fat I will defo be going back to hd training as I do believe that it is superior to olume training in every way (less overall training, so more time to do other things, more rest so the body can spend more time recovering and building muscle and quicker results in both strength and size).

What some people often forget is that weight training can be a very big metabolism booster. The benifits of weight training for your metabolism will continue after you′ve left the gym. If you train more often, you will be able to loose fat faster on a higher caloric level than you would if you barely trained. Remember, your body becomes its function.

If you′re willing to train 3 days a week with the big compounds and stop shy of failure, why not do a professionally designed program? These people know what they are doing. Bill Star′s 5×5 seems to get trainees stronger on the big lifts when cutting bodyfat. The program will keep your furnace burning, that′s for sure.

Good luck,

Jeff